Template talk:Au

Zoology vs. botany[edit]

Under the ICZN, the year is required for an authority (and then appears after a comma in the examples in Article 51). Under the ICN (formerly ICBN), the year is not required, and is not usually given unless as part of a more complete citation including the bibliographic reference. (In some subdisciplines, such as paleobotany, years do tend to be given, but then often follow the style of the examples in the ICN/ICBN in which the date is in parentheses.)

I have now provided two correctly formatted examples. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second parameter?[edit]

I'm just wondering about the purpose of the second parameter. Or an example of its use. Thanks Declangi (talk) 03:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A question for Nonenmac, who added this feature.

I can't see that {{Au|Smith|Jones}}, which generates Smith (Jones), is of any use. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My intent was to allow a parenthesized date to be included with the author name, as in {{au|C.Presl ex M.R.Schomb.|1848}} → C.Presl ex M.R.Schomb. (1848), used for example in the Polypodiales article. I'll update the documentation to include the second parameter for botanical usage. — Nonenmac (talk) 16:50, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, right. Our style is not to include dates with botanical authorities, except perhaps for paleobotany. See Template:Taxobox#Authorities and all the FA class plant articles. So it's a bit odd to document something that should almost never be used...

I've adjusted the documentation to give a paleobotanical example and noted that dates should not normally be given with botanical names. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you both. I get it now. Declangi (talk) 21:36, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]